> Are you claiming that 36 million Ukrainians speak Russian and not Ukrainian
Basically this but not exactly.
Number are up for debate because none of the sane estimates put the count of Ukrainians at 45m. It's closer to 37m or even <30m if we discount those who left Ukraine.
But yeah, the vast majority of urban population thinks in Russian.
Also see an adjacent comment in this thread: if we sum up the predominantly ukrainian-speaking urban centers' population we get to a bit over 11m people which is basically the same figure as Czech language.
Thus putting Ukrainian language to the second place even by conservative estimate.
Basically this but not exactly.
Number are up for debate because none of the sane estimates put the count of Ukrainians at 45m. It's closer to 37m or even <30m if we discount those who left Ukraine.
But yeah, the vast majority of urban population thinks in Russian.
Also see an adjacent comment in this thread: if we sum up the predominantly ukrainian-speaking urban centers' population we get to a bit over 11m people which is basically the same figure as Czech language.
Thus putting Ukrainian language to the second place even by conservative estimate.
Which makes my original point incorrect.